Market Mondays: Contests - Free Ones

Continuing on a little bit of a contest theme from last week, I've compiled a short list of some of the better Speculative Fiction Contests to enter. Ones with a name that are reasonably trustworthy.
* though I will note the Hubbard one does send a lot of emails, if you sign up for the newsletter
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FREE Short Fiction Contests: (no entry fee)

The L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Short Fiction Contest. Each year the winners of the contest wind up published in the Writers of the Future Anthology. Good books, and many good Authors have been winners in the past. This is a contest judged by some of the biggest names in the industry : Kevin J. Anderson, Gregory Benford, Orson Scott Card, Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, Jerry Pournelle, Robert Silverberg and more.
Quarterly Entries.

The Jim Baen Memorial Short Fiction Contest sponsored by The National Space Society and Baen Books . This is a great contest meant to really encourage new writers. There are no guarantees of being published but the opportunity to have your writing evaluated by Baen Books senior editor Hank Davis and Authors Eric Flint and Mike Resnick is pretty valuable.
Deadline: April 1, 2009.

PARSEC Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Contest. This is the 14th iteration of this annual contest. This year the judges are Tor Books Author Walter Hunt, Young Adult Author Sarah Beth Durst, and Author S.C.Butler. The winner will be published in the program book for the Confluence 2009, the annual literary Sci-Fi convention in Pittsburgh.
Deadline: April 15, 2009

The First Annual Spectra Pulse Short Fiction Contest. This one actually closes in a few days, but I'm mentioning it because it meets the criteria of a good contest and with luck will be run again next year. This contest is sponsored by Bantam Spectra, which ultimately traces back to Random House Publishing. This contest will feature the winners story in the summer issue of Spectra.
Deadline: January 31, 2009

Good luck. If you are looking for more contests, below are some of the sites I use.

The Canadian Authors Association website lists a number of markets, and contests.

Ralan's Webstravaganza contains both Market listings and contest listings.

Good information can also be found at Young Adult Author David Barr Kirtley's Resources for Teen Authors (not all the contests there are restricted to teens).

* remember to evaluate the contests before committing your work or money to anything



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Contest Writing

There's a post over at The Rejecter today about Contests and Contracts. The Rejecter responds to a question about a subject rarely looked at, the obligations and restrictions upon you when you enter your work into a contest. One interesting restriction that sometimes happens is being unable to submit your work elsewhere while waiting for the contest judging to finish.

Let's be honest Speculative Fiction is a hard field to make money in, much less achieve recognition. This is really true of all artistic endeavours and while being unfortunate it does make what recognition there is all the more valuable. I have looked at many contests as routes to getting my work published. I haven't entered most though for a few reasons. The main one being cost.

Many contests require an entry fee, I understand that these fees are many times the only reason for the contest existing. The monies collected pay for prizes/andor/publication for the winners. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, especially in the age of the internet. There is very little accountability and trust possible with just email as a communication method. So, before sending out that work and the check with it, (or just your credit card info on a web form) how do you assess the validity of the contest?
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Google to the rescue?
A quick search for 'scam writing contest' turns up this page: Warnings About Literary Fraud and Other Schemes, Scams, and Pitfalls That Target Writers, from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. I already had it bookmarked, but that's because I read the Writer Beware Blog.

The Key points to assessing a contest from the above sites and similar (Canauthors.org) sites (Writing-World.com) come down to some common sense questions:
*this is just a quick summary, I suggest looking to the linked sites for a more comprehensive approach to identifying scam contests and markets.

* Who's conducting the contest?
This is where the trust relationship comes in, if you are unsure of the contest sponsors or judges motives, then stay away. Some contests are run just to gather money, others are run to get your information and possible future business through marketing efforts after the contest.

* What's the Prize?
Some prizes are too good to be true - enormous cash prizes that when you read the small print are actually subject to a number of conditions and restrictions where in the end what a winner receives may be a fraction of what was promised. Or is the prize the reward of being charged to work with their agency or publisher?


* Is the contest Free? or for Fee?
Cost to enter doesn't have to be a barrier to entry, however I ask you this: If it's free to submit your work to any number of publishing houses and Speculative Fiction Magazines, why would you pay someone to judge the quality of your work. Winning contests is nice, but the measures of success in this industry have more to do with successful publication. Pay to enter a contest that you trust and see value in, but remember the fees should never be excessive, less than 25$ for a manuscript is appropriate.


And finally the most obvious one:

* Have you read the fine print?
I actually advise you to save a copy of the fine print to a file on your machine, or print it out. The 'Catch' is never in the big bold letters at the top of the page, the Devil lies in the details.

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